Tuesday, November 25, 2008

I find it interesting to Google many of the "talking heads" on new programs. Frequently I find that they have no qualifications whatsoever to be experts. Malcolm Gladwell points out that you need 10,000 hours to be expert in anything - about 5 years of uninterrupted study and practice. Yet many of the experts on TV have barely achieved 100 hours. This also applies to politicians talking about business, or business people talking about social policy. It also suggests that someone with, say 15 years total experience cannot have the breadth to be a CEO, General or other leader. Yet we too readily anoint individuals as experts whose opinions we value.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

At any point in time, the press anoints a few business executives as heroes. From the days of Henry Ford, through Harold Geneen at ITT, Jack Welch at GE, to modern heroes such as Carly Fiorina, to Vikram Pandit. A very few are considered to be specially talented in retrospect, but most are seen to be far from perfect. This should not surprise us we do not often see what the CEO really does. Furthermore, a large organization is a group activity, and the leader does not know or influence most of what happens in it. Middle management who have been at the company a long time are often adept at preventing any change from taking place even if the leader pushes forcefully. Thus, while A.G. Lafley probably is one of the great CEOs of all time, he could only acheive his objective because he has a superb organization in place.

There are very few really great leaders, and even they are often flawed. Alfred Sloan thought that the Allies would lose to Germany because of its superior organization! We need to scale back our expectations of CEOs and also recognize that middle managers are critical to any successes or failures. Assigning star status to a CEO is counter-productive. Robert Nardelli was pushed out of Home Depot (with a $210 Million severance - it was cheaper to pay him that than keep him in place), so was hired to run Chrysler, a dying company in an industry which he knew not at all. Few middle managers would ever be hired on that basis.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

For many years now, the issues facing the US auto industry have been known to all. The Big Three have many intelligent executives, yet market share has continued to drop for the past three decades. Back in 1995, Hedrick Smith, in Rethinking America, discussed how Ford and GM had finally seen the light and had started making changes. However, over the time since, none of them have succeeded in digging themselves out. Few long-established companies can ever really change the fundamentals. It might be more productive if the Government simply takes the money that it is going to lose, and uses it to start a completely new car company with none of the baggage of the old ones!

Saturday, November 01, 2008

So many people think it is easy to turn around a company, change culture, cut costs without hurting effectiveness. Many Private Equity executives have never run a manufacturing company or consumer services company. Yet, they think it is easy to be done. Any thinking and experienced executive has known for years that the US automobile companies have been dying and will be almost impossible to save. So why did Cerberus buy Chrysler? Why did Mullaly move to Ford - a consumer products company, completely unlike Boeing?

The answer is partly hubris, partly lack of understanding of what it will take, and also partly lack of objective and deep thought.

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About Me

Richard has grown multiple businesses, some from scratch, some already establishes, to much bigger profit and market value.

Richard has over
thirty years in leading Fortune 500 and much smaller companies to
success as a member of top management in Fortune 500 companies and adviser to
them as consultant and Board member.

Prior to
founding Max Brand Equity, Richard started his career in marketing at Procter
& Gamble, later becoming a Division Head at Mars, Inc, CMO at US West and BMC
Software as well as President of Reliant Energy. He was also a partner in two
respected consulting firms, where he advised top management of Global 2000
companies. He has been on the Board of eight highly successful companies,
including four start-ups.

Richard has
focused on initiating and leading change to achieve successful results in
global organizations in changing markets. From Consumer Packaged goods to
communications and high-tech he has created new paradigms which have changed
the market structure and built substantial revenue and profit growth.

Most recently,
Richard created the consumer “broadband” market while at US West/Comcast, the
most successful retail energy business at Reliant Energy, new “dialog-based” CRM approaches at several companies as well as BMC software, as well as pioneering in
multi-channel and direct to the consumer marketing. He grew market value of
three public corporations by several-fold in periods of around two years each.
The firm focuses on excellence in execution - Big Idea to Successful Implementation
in Seven Steps

Richard has
focused on initiating and leading change to achieve successful results in
global organizations in changing markets. From Consumer Packaged goods to
communications and high-tech he has created new paradigms which have changed
the market structure and built substantial revenue and profit growth.

Richard has
grown and led several large global organizations. Much of the success of the
organizations was built on his definition of tasks and responsibilities as well
as structure and communications. He has lived and worked in ten countries and
four continents, achieving great success in multiple markets.

He has regularly
achieved success for many companies, in multiple categories, both as a manager
and as a consultant. He is an acknowledged expert, having been a published
author and public speaker over many years, and is sought out as an interviewee
in many areas.

Richard
graduated from the University of Cambridge with a
Bachelors degree in Chemistry, Physics, and Math. He went on to earn a Masters from Cambridge
in Chemical Engineering.